El Niño sea monitoring system may fail – half dead already

Researchers collect data from one of the 70 buoys in the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array. TAO buoys are equipped with sea surface temperature monitoring instruments. Hourly observations are stored in instrument memory and must be retrieved by operators. Image: NOAA

From the “send money or the instrumentation gets it” department comes news that the TAO array may already be toast due to budget constraints. One wonders if money sucked into climate programs might be a factor.

From Nature News: Nearly half of the moored buoys in the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array have failed in the last two years, crippling an early-warning system for the warming and cooling events in the eastern equatorial Pacific, known respectively as El Niño and La Niña. Scientists are now collecting data from just 40% of the array.

“It’s the most important climate phenomenon on the planet, and we have blinded ourselves to it by not maintaining this array,” says Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Seattle, Washington. McPhaden headed the TAO project before it was transferred out of NOAA’s research arm and into the agency’s National Weather Service in 2005.

The network was developed over the course of a decade following the massive El Niño of 1982‒1983. NOAA maintains some 55 buoys across the eastern and central Pacific that monitor weather conditions as well as water temperatures down to 500 metres. Working in concert, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) maintains another dozen buoys in the western tropical Pacific. Combined, the monitoring system has become a cornerstone for seasonal weather forecasting given the tropical Pacific’s influence on broader weather patterns.

An array adrift

The array’s troubles began in 2012, when budget cuts pushed NOAA to retire a ship dedicated to performing the annual servicing that keeps the TAO buoys in working order. According to McPhaden, NOAA’s annual budget for the project stood at about US$10‒$12 million before 2012 — a figure that included around $6 million to coverthe dedicated ship. In fiscal year 2013, the agency spent $2‒$3 million to charter boats for maintenance runs, but McPhaden says that these operations have not been enough to keep the system going. Meanwhile, although JAMSTEC has thus far kept its portion of the array up and running, it too is under budgetary pressure.

Straight into the pockets of Obama’s good buddies scamming the tax payers with GREEN corporations that fail (leaving behind rusting bat-chomping bird-slicing eco-crucifixes for us to pay to clean up) while our infrastructure falls apart.

Let me guess.
Classic bureaucracy, concentrate spending on the politically expedient fluff.
Restrict spending on core functions(Those that are the mandate of the agency)
Then insist they need more money to carry out those core functions.
Here in Canada, that is called Environment Canada.
Bragging about having spent $4billion researching global warming, while claiming they lacked the manpower and financial resources to rectify known problems with their weather stations and data gathering systems.
If NOAA runs true to form, next you will discover that they have funded a think tank, to research the effects of global warming with $650 million and when the department head is called to account, they will resign from govt, to immediately reappear as Chairman/CEO of the think tank.

Yeah NOAA stripped a lot of programs to the bone to keep pouring money into the money pit which started as NPOESS and is now JPSS after the Air Force (well known for their stingy nature /sarc) bailed out out the joint military/civilian venture.

“The array’s troubles began in 2012, when budget cuts pushed NOAA to retire a ship dedicated to performing the annual servicing that keeps the TAO buoys in working order.”
—————-
They probably broke the buoys on purpose so they wouldn’t have to contend with pesky real-world data.

Perhaps their resolution would be to eventually replace the entire array with devices that are also capable of measuring both atmospheric and dissolved CO2 which we all know is the major climate driver. Minor contributors like El Niño and La Niña are inconsequential in the greater scale of climate/weather
/sarc

I believe I saw a figure of 24 million per year. I assume that’s just the equipment floating out in the ocean – not the people and equipment in the various research centers collecting, processing and distributing it.

peterg:
Argo should cover this, though maybe not as fine a resolution. Not sure.

On a different note:
It’s interesting to me how difficult it is to find aggregate data for the Argo network (i.e. ocean temperature vs time graphs). I have a good idea why ;-)

I recently downloaded all the Argo data. It’s about 27 GB and unfortunately there didn’t seem to be an easy bulk download method (I had downloaded 1.2 million ‘profiles’ individually). There may have been a way, I just didn’t find it.

This is not unique to Climate Science&tm;. This is the behavior of every government bureaucracy. There is no glamour in field data collection. There is no public accolades or notoriety. You will never be the next Schnieder or Trenberth. You are just, as Steve McIntyre call them, a specialist known only to other specialists, toiloing in obscurity to produce clean datasets.

No, the real action for the bureaucratic strivers everywhere is … Predictions of Doom. “ZOMG! Our Super Mega Ultra Flops modeling computer edifice has predicted the End of the World as We Know It, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit. Send more money immediately!” That’s how you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone. And when your picture is on the cover, then the people are ok with shoveling more of their money at you,

And it will continue to be this way until we say “Ya basta! No more for you. Go dig ditches for a while, do something useful.”

Many people on WUWT, including myself, have said that solid unarguable data is secondary to computer models. This proves it, as has been said by others on this post, they can spend billions on wind turbines and dodgy climate “research” but when it comes to putting our money where their mouths are, they won’t do it. In the past this was by manipulation of data, now the new one, is by not collecting it in the first place.

Seems that NOAA has money for it wants, then they put them under the US Weather Service and it seems USWS saw a new cash cow for its programs and there went the funding. When a NEXRAD system came to SE Arizona for the Tucson airport. Several research originations suggest siting the radar a few miles away and it could have protected the Tucson and also seen the ~100 raingage network on the 150 sq km Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed. A golden opportunity to evaluate NEXRAD over a densely monitored rainfall and runoff measuring network. This would been of great benefit to the sciences of radar used to measure precipitation and observed runoff data for the Weather Service’s regional forecast methodology. But they had no interest. Don’t know for sure but I got the impression they did not want precipitation and runoff estimation procedures they use on a national basis tested with measured rainfall and runoff data. Sad if true, but anyway they had one excuse after another why they could not re-site the radar.

What if the CAGW Industry was right? If they were I would see massive public works projects building dams, levies, reservoirs, sea walls, flood gates, storm drains etc, etc, etc… The thing is, I am fairly certain they are wrong. However; I still want to see massive public works projects building dams, levies, reservoirs, sea walls, flood gates, storm drains etc, etc, etc…because our climate is always changing and we have seen what has happened in the past and are certain it is going to happen in the future.

Nope. ARGO monitors subsurface ocean temperatures and salinity by making a dive to depths and then ascending every 10 days.

The TAO/TRITON project floats are/were fixed in place, take measurements continuously and also include subsurface currents. They also include what would be considered a weather station on the buoys, so they also monitor downward shortwave radiation (sunlight), downwelling longwave (infrared) radiation, wind strength and direction, relative humidity, precipitation, marine air temperature, etc.

The Nature article ends with:
“In my opinion, NOAA dropped the ball on an incredible programme for climate research and weather forecasting,” McPhaden says. “And now they are trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

Hopefully, NOAA is not going to use “all the King’s horses” to put the TAO project back together. With their lack of fingers and opposable thumbs, horses aren’t very good at putting things back together. Just ask Humpty.

The TAO/TRITON, PIRATA, and RAMA buoys only monitor the tropics (basically near the equator) and they’re limited to the depths they monitor. The ARGO floats are the primary source of claims of continued ocean warming, but their outputs have to be adjusted to show said warming.

This is the data that should be useful to the warmist. Letting it disappear is an admission that only bad can come from it. It would be better not to take temperature data that refutes a story than collect it and kill the story.

Several years ago I was in Churchill, Manitoba, the home of the celebrity polar bears. At the science centre, global warming was full on. There was a temperature graph showing how badly Churchill’s temperatures were rising. The graph ended in 2000, even though it was now late 2009 and they were sitting beside where the temperatures were recorded. You only had to look at the 2000 – 2009 data to understand why: the temps weren’t matching projection (or theory), but since the naturalists there “knew” what was happening, they didn’t post them.

When you are in battle, never let your enemy know you have a weakness. An Art of War thing, applicable to the CAGW fight.

The NRC Advisory Board for USGCRP, convened in 2011, noted in a review of the recently released 2012 USGCRP Strategic Plan that USGCRP needs a stronger overall governance structure, including an ability to compel reallocation of funds to serve the program’s overarching priorities (NRC, 2012b). The current committee shares this view.

Now, annual budget of USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program) is $2.6 billion. A tiny fraction (0.15%) of that money could perhaps be diverted to observations instead of computer games. It is less than the amount US taxpayers spent on IPCC business.

In fiscal year 2011, the USGCRP participating agencies and departments contributed $1,995,642 to the IPCC in support of both the IPCC Technical Support Unit for Working Group II and travel support for U.S. scientists participating in all three of the IPCC Working Groups. In addition, the total U.S. Government contribution to the IPCC Trust Fund in FY 2011 was $2,682,845, of which $350,000 was for the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), with the remaining $2,332,845 for IPCC programs.

Are these the same buoys that Prof John Christy et al reported on around Jan 2,000 or maybe 2001 in geophysical research letters or one of those. They repoted on up to 20 years of data from buoys, that simultaneously measured SS Temperatures at -1 meter in the water, and lower trop Temperatures at + 3 meters in the air.

So prior to that it was presumed that the Temperature of a bucket of water from some unknown depth, sitting evaporating on a ships deck, was identical the ocean air Temperature at that place, and back to the 1850s etc, that’s how oceanic air Temps were obtained.

Now why anyone would believe that, is quite beyond me. Ocean currents are just a few knots at best, while wind speeds can be tens to hundreds. So air over Hawaii, could be in California, in a few days.

Well evidently Christy et al found that the air Temps had warmed in that period, only about 60% of the water Temp warming (I’m reciting from memory), so the Temps are NOT the same.

Well more importantly, they found that the water, and air Temps aren’t even correlated. So it is impossible to go back and correct all the Temps from ocean ships since 1850 to around 1980, since the 60% factor was simply the observed, for that 20 years or so, and wouldn’t stay the same because of the correlation disconnect.

Well, so you take another ocean gravy train cruise next summer to compare the data in your favorite acidic dive spot, and you return to the very same GPS spot in the middle of nowhere.

Well ocean currents meander, and you will find yourself in totally different waters, than were there last summer. So what good is that.

In any case, what does it matter if the models and the statistics are all hokey. Prior to 1980, much of the data is just garbage. Well the oceans only account for about 70% of the data fortunately.

We need a deeply divided, deeply dysfunctional Congress – which has a significant number who don’t want the government spending hardly anything – to agree on doing their jobs, including by compromising between parties to pass a budget. Anyone remember the sequester? How about “deficit hawk”? Funding is cut everywhere.

Obama’s been pretty pro-science, and there are Republicans who understand the benefits, too. Maybe NOAA will get this item from their current wish list.

Here’s a quote from NOAA’s FY 2014 budget blue book:

“Local Warnings & Forecasts Base, Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array: NOAA
requests an increase of $2,400,000 and 0 FTE to increase the operations
and maintenance of Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) buoys, to achieve
an 80-percent data availability standard. Data provided via the TAO network
directly contributes to the prediction of El Niño and La Niña impacts.
….
NOAA proposes to increase ongoing operations and maintenance
(O&M) of the TAO array to meet full O&M needs. With this increase, NOAA
will be able to maintain a data return rate of 80 percent.. “

The ENSO is, after all, the most important driver of the weather on the planet.

I’m not sure why they left so many buoys in disrepair. Some people said metal pirates were scavenging them on a regular basis which is why so many were not operational at a given time.

I think they need to make a concerted effort to keep the ones in the far eastern Pacific in better condition. These are the ones that provide the most lead-time for changing conditions (and might be more susceptible to metal pirates).

On the current conditions of the ENSO, it looks like we are heading to more-of La Nina conditions in the very near future.

The negative PDO pattern / the heat content in the eastern Pacific has cooled off any development toward an El Nino and it appears strong enough to ward off any El Nino for another year.

The warmers are putting their hopes on another strong El Nino developing but there is just too much cool water in the eastern near-equator Pacific for that to occur. In fact, one should be watching for a moderate La Nina now instead.

I would be interested in seeing the chain of monies distribution. Wouldn’t you expect an organization (NOAA ? seriously ?) dedicated to the study of climate be starved of funds for a particularly scientific sharp-end data monitoring system.

Yes, I am suggesting that science has become totally corrupted and made the servant of politics. Lysenko in the USSA.

I would go back ~60 years and look at the 1950 – 1960s more La Niñas than El Niños.

That the climate has shifted gears seems pretty obvious. I would also watch the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and associated wind that drives it. you can see how the cold water from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current some times runs up the coast of South America .

No one is crediting the man in charge of managing the incompetent managers at NOAA – President Obama. He’s the one who think government manages best is the one that’s the biggest.

Why don’t we get the TAO/TRITON Array farmed out to a university? The Aricebo radio telescope in Puerto Rico got sold to Cornell University, for instance – now managed and re-invested for the greater cause of science. Why not some oceanography minded university, now?

This is just unbelieveable. As a retired instrumentation/control systems engineer the lack of maintenance on this strategic system of bouys temp. measurements is totally unacceptable. Perhaps it was a decision between food stamp money and the free Obama phones that made the difference. I’m afraid that our expertise & knowledge base is headed back toward the 19th century.

With literally _billions_ going into climate models that don’t even come close to producing a useful model after three decades of effort, they can’t even organise their budget to maintain the instruments against which they hope to calibrate their models.

Since the whole modelling effort has been a financial abyss that is where the cuts need be to be made.

The quality and quantity of REAL input data is core of any science. If they cannot maintain the data collection they can no longer claim to be doing science.

If any climate model were even close to accurate it would be the only one needed. It should then be possible to defund any number of supercomputers and associated facilities and organizations. Any organization wanting to create its own SC might do what one of our universtities here in Virginia did – make one out of a couple of thousand Mac G5 desktops networked together (at a likely cost of around $250.00 each)